Shifting Gears (oh wait...only men know how to drive standards) : Women Writing in the Early Republic

Again, I felt like this chapter started out by going over many of the ideas we've discussed in class, but as it progressed, I felt like Dobson & Zagarell offered up some interesting information. I hadn't thought too much about the idea of some forms of literature being feminine or masculine until last week when we discussed it briefly in class (novel/poetry). Often when I tell people I study Science Fiction & Graphic Novels, I get a surprised look because it's thought of more of a 'dude thing;' whereas, my involvement with children's literature is somehow more expected. While studying at Texas State, I had a male professor tell me he would not work with me on a thesis about male beatniks. He looked at me and asked, "But, wouldn't you rather like to write about the female beats?" as he handed me Diane di Prima's Memoirs of a Beatnik. Unfortunately, the masculine and feminine divide still exists--even in higher education-- and I think it is interesting that it traces back to this time period. I rather enjoyed Dobsno and Zagarell's discussion of Huntley:

"So impressed was the reviewer with Huntley's talent that he tried to dissuade her from adehering to 'female' forms of writing at all, speaking dismissively of the educational materials in the volume. Rather, he sought to enlist her talents in the creation of a national literature, which he defined in public and broadly political terms...[H]e urged Huntley to contemplate 'some more considerable undertaking' and itemized the 'early history of Virginia, New England, and Canada,' the 'maginificence' of America's scenery, and the military conflicts and geographic expansion of the colonial era. This unqualified assumption that a woman poet could contribute to the emergingin national literature is notable not only for paying virtually no attention to her gender but also for tis encouragement of her treatment of politics and war, public matters later assigned almost exclusively to the realm of the masculine" (373).

The fact that female writers had different methods (having a male pen name, offering introductions and/or characters that acknowledge the divide, becoming a generalist instead of a specialist) of combatting the feminine/masculine divide. By facing these limitations in clever ways, I think the women of this decade showed that they possessed something every writer hopes her or she has - SPUNK!